The Daily Telegraph letters

12:01AM GMT 11 Dec 2004

Doctors and patients deserve protection

Sir – The function of the General Medical Council (GMC) has been misunderstood (News, Dec 10). It exists primarily to oversee the education and, from 2005, the licensing of doctors. Its remit with regard to discipline is relatively narrow. The courts – civil, criminal and coroner's – are the proper places for complaints against doctors to be heard, and the rights of reply of the "defendant" are enshrined in law.

To alter the structure of the GMC as a result of the criminal activities of one GP is a gross overreaction, and would run the risk of making it incapable of performing its primary role.

All medical procedures involve an element of risk. It is the medical practitioner's duty to explain and minimise that risk. We now have to work in an increased atmosphere of suspicion that all mishaps or poor outcomes must necessarily arise from negligence. Doctors deserve protection as well.

David Nunn, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, London SE1

Sir - It would restore public confidence in the medical profession and the GMC if it accepted Dame Janet Smith's recommendations in full. They are wide-ranging and wise. There cannot be another judge in Britain who knows more about the minds of medical practitioners - particularly those who have stepped outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour and practice.

The present "ark of the covenant" appears to be "revalidation". But who is going to validate the validators?

I believe there have been enough delays and diversions. Generously, Dame Janet has given the profession four years to put its house in order. Unless major advances occur soon, I predict the GMC's life expectancy to be less than four years.

Sir - Presumably Harold Shipman believed that what he was doing was right. That has been both the Prime Minister's and the Home Secretary's justification for their actions, which many have found reprehensible but for which they have been or are likely to be exonerated.

If the Shipman inquiry results in the medical profession having to be continuously inspected by people not qualified in medicine, who by definition do not understand the uncertainties that doctors are trained to manage in making the best judgments they can, why should not the same approach be applied to politicians?

At least the medical profession understands the difference, on an ethical basis, between what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Before the Government self-righteously destroys medicine's self-governance should it not make explicit the ethical basis of its own actions?

Sir – Dame Janet's comments regarding the GMC come as no surprise: time has run out for the GMC.

Dame Janet's report has to be acted upon. Medical disciplinary procedures in this country must be carried out by an independent tribunal. This would be fair to the medical profession and would give patients the optimum protection.

This would be a fitting tribute to patients whose lives were so cruelly taken by a ruthless and evil practitioner.

Una Dalrymple, Boxgrove, W Sussex

Sir – If Dr Shipman had had an affair with one of his patients, rather than killing her, the GMC would have been down on him like a ton of bricks.

Les Sharp, Hersham, Surrey

Muslims are constantly attacked in Britain

Sir – The Muslim Council of Britain is campaigning against incitement, not the right to criticise beliefs. The Attorney-General has taken a very strict view of what constitutes incitement with our existing race hate laws. Only four out of more than 80 cases brought to him have been approved for prosecution in the past three years. There is no reason to suppose he would be any less strict with the proposed incitement to religious hatred law.

Michael Burleigh (Opinion, Dec 9) is entitled to his opinion when he described the Dutch member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali as "extraordinarily brave" and extolled the murdered Theo van Gogh as a "liberal film-maker". Of course, the gruesome violence and threats they received are wholly reprehensible. Yet it would be honest to mention that both made deliberately provocative remarks, with Hirsi Ali describing Mohammed as a "lecherous tyrant" and a "pervert" while Van Gogh referred to Muslims as "goat-f------".

Burleigh derides the evidence for Islamophobia as "anecdotal and slight". In September, an Iraqi Muslim was viciously assaulted in Cardiff and later died of his injuries in what police describe as a race-hate killing. Not a single issue of the Muslim News goes by without similar stories of British Muslims - surgeons, mini-cab drivers, young children - being attacked and abused in the street, their homes pelted with stones, their places of worship subjected to arson and even their cemeteries vandalised. Perhaps if the mainstream media paid a bit more attention to these crimes, Burleigh would not remain so unaware of the reality of Islamophobia here.

There has been a clear and undeniable upsurge in anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-Muslim hate crimes in Europe over the past few years. This should be portrayed in a fair manner.

The critics of the Government's proposals for cutting the Army's infantry requirements never questioned the need to end the Arms Plot. We all accept that it is disruptive to families, to the operational needs of the Army, and is bad for retention.

But Geoff Hoon is attempting to use the need to remove the Arms Plot to justify cuts in infantry manpower and what will in effect be the end of regimental traditions and organisation of 19 infantry battalions.

Only last month, General Sir Michael Jackson said: "I would much prefer increasing the size of the Army, but that's simply not on offer. I can either accept what's on offer - a reduced size of the Army - or go… The debate about the Army's future is not simple. It is time to make some hard decisions."

We agree. Indeed, most people are amazed that, at a time when the infantry is badly overstretched and on extensive operational deployments that will probably increase, the Government is intent on cuts. The Government intends cutting the current trained establishment of the Army from the Strategic Defence Review target of 108,500 to a new target of 102,000 by 2008.

Mr Hoon writes that the Army has always embraced the kind of dynamic change that would send most private sector organisations reeling. True, but these are cuts too far. His distinguished predecessor Lord Healey once said of another round of Labour defence cuts: "I did not think it made sense to carry out an appendix operation on a man while he was lifting a grand piano."

How right he was.

Nicholas Soames MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, London SW1

Snakes well treated

Sir - Germaine Greer makes some alarmingly inaccurate assertions on ITV's treatment of snakes in the recent series of I'm A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! She suggests that we used copperhead snakes for Janet Street Porter's Bushtucker trial and "mutilated" them by removing their fangs. Ms Greer continues: "A toothless copperhead is a painfully mutilated and helpless animal… Home Office inspectors would be more usefully employed in questioning Granada London and ITV about what appears to be systematic abuse of Australia fauna in their top money-making programme…"

We categorically refute her assertions on several counts. No snake was mutilated. No copperhead snakes were used for the trial. We used water pythons: they had their full complement of teeth. At no stage did we state that "the snake sunk its fangs into her hand". After the trial, Janet said she had been bitten and marks on her hand proved this.

The insinuation that ITV would involve itself in the mutilation of snakes for filming is highly incorrect. Our professional, experienced team of animal wranglers ensure that all animals used for the purpose of the show were not abused in any way. The Australian equivalent of the RSPCA, which conducts regular checks, is very happy that no cruelty to animals takes place.

Alexander Gardiner, Executive Producer, I'm A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, London SE1

Spare Lisbon

Sir – Your story about Norman Foster's 360ft skyscraper depressed me immensely (News, Dec 9). Lisbon is probably the last major European capital city still to possess a humane, traditional scale that invites one to explore. Foster apparently justifies his building by claiming that it will be a symbol for future generations, help the economy and further internationalism.

The last time such sentiments were used in the city to justify a new building was when Salazar pushed through the dreadful Estoril Sol hotel skyscraper, which blights the coastline near Cascais. Fortunately, it is now closed and there are plans to rebuild at a lower scale. All who love Lisbon should oppose this carbuncle.

Nigel Moor, Wallingford, Oxon

Sir – I see Foster is trying to do to Lisbon what the Tour Montparnasse does to Paris: disfigure the heart of the city.

The proposed phallic tower in Lisbon, likewise without visual merit, will be a monument to the architect's flaccid talent. Can't he save his architectural gimmicks for Gateshead and other ugly English cities?

Rory O'Keeffe, Cadenet, France

Hark the healthy angels

Sir – Simon Sholl (letters, Dec 10) has only given half of the Beecham's Pills carol, which I remember singing gleefully in about 1948. The version I knew continued: "If you want to go to Heaven/ Just take six or even seven./ If you want to go to Hell/ Why not swallow the box as well?/ Hark the herald etc…".

Maroussia Richardson, Exeter

Sir – Liverpool has its own pastiche of We Three Kings: "We four lads from Liverpool are, John in a taxi, Paul in a car, George on a scooter pooping his hooter, Following Ringo Starr."

Does anyone still sing these versions, I wonder?

Linda Hall, Shepperton, Middx

Finnishing school

Sir – It is no surprise that Finns lead in education (letters, Dec 9). Anyone who can learn their language is bound to be good at almost anything.

Donald Stevens, Bournemouth, Dorset

Men for breakfast

Sir – What a delight to arrive at the breakfast table and find two handsome men, Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen and Colin Firth, looking up at me from The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday morning. Such a very enjoyable change from your usual picture offerings of blood and gore or simpering bimbos.

Ann Parsons, Bromsgrove, Hereford & Worcs

Sir – So, Marks & Spencer is piloting man creches (News, Dec 10) to save the frayed nerves of shoppers everywhere. The answer is surely simpler than that. Just leave children of all ages at home.